The next day I got up and spent some time walking around the city.
My first stop was a player-run pastry stall that sold an array of treats that I loved.
After that I went to sit in the town square, drinking my tea and people-watching.
Since the dungeon came out, the general level of people's gear had gone up a notch, and so did the average wealth of players.
The dungeon allowed a rapid way to gain XP, and the boss had a chance to drop gemstones that could be sold to NPC merchants.
The surge in money was noticeable, as my cloaks and robes were all sold out when I checked them after my breakfast.
In total it netted me a little over five gold, an amount that was hard to imagine as it stood.
But I had no plans on letting my money stockpile grow.
Currently there were 51 listings for refined mana on the auction house, going for an average of 10 silver each.
It seemed that enchanting was a difficult profession to get into, even worse than I thought, so I planned on taking advantage of that.
Spending all my gold, I bought up the rest of the refined mana, then put a buy order in so that anyone who wanted to sell it from this point going forward could immediately do so at 12 silver per.
If I was being honest with myself, the reason why I didn't agree with Sheral yesterday was because this was my plan.
To do the same thing they were doing, but of course I'm not as bad because enchanting is a relatively unused profession, and refined mana isn't used outside of it.
Sadly, as much as I wanted to start my enchanting work now, I had a commitment to helping an annoying child.
So I took the quick walk to the exit gates of the city to look for him.
He was leaning on the wall, and saw me at about the same time I saw him.
"Ready?" I say, trying to maintain the good mood I had this morning.
"Course, bro. Ready as ever," he says, taking his wand out and inviting me to a group.
After accepting, I started walking to The Meadows.
"Not gonna say anything?" he asked, a little confused.
"Just praying you'll learn somewhat quickly."
"Feels like you're just being rude, but aight."
The walk had an awkward silence to it I didn't feel like filling, and by the time we got to the gnolls I took out a spear and tossed it to him.
"What's this for?" he said, letting it miss him and fall to the ground.
"It's a spear, you'll be using it to kill things."
"What? I'm a mage, remember?" He was clearly a bit angry by this point.
"Well, your mana is still too low to be slinging spells, so this shitty spear will carry you through The Meadows and into level eighteen-ish. The highest levels we'll see here are level 32, so after that we'll head to Dusk Falls, and there you'll need to use your magic. And also a spear probably."
He rolled his eyes, but probably knew what I was saying. The tutorial for people that wanted to stay 'true mages' was pretty rough.
"Fine," he said, picking the spear up. "Where are we starting?"
"There's a cave just past these trees, there are a slurry of level fifteen guarding it, then it turns to level sixteen or seventeen in the cave. At this level the difference won't matter though. Just brace your spear and point it in their direction, and let them run into it."
"They'll just impale themselves?"
"Pretty much here, not in the next area, but these guys are not smart," I say, forming 5 Magic Missiles above my head. "Just rush through, I'll kill anything that puts you in danger."
"Okay, sure," he says, walking into the range of one of the gnolls and preparing his spear.
Just as I said, the creature ran up and impaled itself, then again another one did, then again and again till we got to the end of the cave.
"That's pretty shitty," Zach said, eating some of my food. "Mages are getting shafted here."
"Yeah, leveling is a bit tougher for sure. I know a guy who has an Elite monster as a pet, so on top of all his abilities he has that monster in the fight with him."
"Yeah, I mean, I feel like I should just figure out a martial way out of this class."
"I mean, do what you want, but once your intelligence is higher you'll be able to see the benefits more."
"It's already in the mid 30s."
I rolled my eyes, thinking about how to respond for a second.
"Let's put it like this, casters will always be important, but so will warriors, healers, crafters, paladins, and nearly every other class. Just do what you wanna do, man."
This time he rolled his eyes at me, probably to mock how much I do it to him.
"I want to be strong."
"You will be strong. The system won't let you down."
"Why do you have so much faith in that?" he said.
It was a good point, one I hadn't thought of much admittedly.
"Because it's fair," was the response I settled on.
"Bullshit!" he said instantly. "How is it fair to, like, my grandma? She's old as fuck."
"The system healed the ailments of age, gave them a second chance."
"Yeah, but they're still old as fuck! Like, the older people in my group barely made it."
"Well maybe then they aren't fit to be in this new world?" I responded, already over the conversation.
"Exactly! So it isn't fair!"
"It's as fair as it can be though, and can we not right now? Let's just start walking to Dusk Falls," I say, getting up and walking out of the cave.
"Whatever, man."
It took an hour or so to get to Dusk Falls after that, the walk largely occupied by arguments.
Although Zach was annoying, it was certainly fun to argue with him after a while.
As we crossed the boundary into Dusk Falls I stopped.
"Alright, what spells do you have?"
"Um, Ice Lance, Ice Bullet, and Frostbite."
"I assume the last one slows things down, right?"
"Yeah, but it's not really worth it mana-wise."
"Okay, you'll use Ice Bullet for these guys then."
I kneeled on the ground, taking out a 100% 100% map of the zone I had made, and pointed at a location I called 'Wolf Den.'
"This is where we'll be hunting. This zone is mostly wolves and a few cursed wolves every once in a while," I said, rolling my map back up.
"That's the cartography skill, right?"
"Yeah, what about it?" I said defensively. In the recent months cartography had become a little obsolete since mages had near-perfect recall and most people had a mage in the group.
"Kinda a shitty skill, ain't it?"
"Sure," I said, just getting up and starting to walk to the Wolf Den.
During the walk we argued a bit more, then an awkward silence would happen, then of course we would argue again.
The whole walk I felt like there were eyes on me, but that's the nature of the region. The whole thing was creepy.
"Remember, just use Ice Bullets to kill these guys. Aim for their eyes though."
"And I can't use my lance because?"
"It costs you four times the mana."
Again he rolled his eyes at me. I think the action was growing on him just like how Sheral made it grow on me.